With class pruning we lost Phoenix Flames, and the Fire rotation has felt noticeably less fluid ever since. Rather than simplifying gameplay, this change actually raised the skill floor by making distance a meaningful factor.
Specifically, when Combustion refunds two charges of Fire Blast, positioning becomes critical. At max range you can execute sequences like Fireball → Fire Blast → Fire Blast → Combustion (before the Fireball cast ends) → Meteor. Because of the travel time on Fireball and Pyroblast, both spells land after the global cooldown, triggering another Hot Streak Pyroblast, followed by an additional Fire Blast and Pyroblast. While this interaction works mechanically, I doubt this kind of hidden optimization is what the developers intended with these changes.
In practice, it feels unintuitive and clunky. The opener becomes actively punishing if you stand too close to the target, even though being closer is otherwise more beneficial due to shorter travel times and a smoother overall flow.
When combined with mastery stacking from the Feel the Burn talent, this undermines the goal of class pruning by further increasing the hidden skill ceiling. At the same time, the Fire Mage rotation already ranges from three to five buttons depending on talent choices. Adding a single quality-of-life spell would not increase complexity.
My suggestion is simply to bring back Phoenix Flames. A fourth rotational button would smooth out the rotation and reduce positional min-maxing without lowering the skill ceiling.
If that is still considered too much, an alternative could be a choice node between Meteor and Phoenix Flames.